Philosophizing art

Well Enzo while there is certainly enough space left for beauty and art in Science Science as a field does not entertain discretionary subjective expression of points of view or in the very least aims not to...rather the constancy, the common denominator, the universality of observation and experiment are the conducting line that often contradict personnel perspectives or initial assumptions...unfortunately there are a great deal of wash down relativists that do contribute to the increasing perception of science as you portrait it above. As failed intellectuals and poor academics their motivation mostly is bedded in an unconscious irrational resentment directed against any objective forms of inquiry...naturally as most of us are not any closer to genius status then their mediocre grudging such positions are always very popular to the masses...

I'm afraid I have to disagree with that.

To me, Art expresses a very subjective complex of ideas and feelings; it may entertain, provide insight, evoke emotional responses etc, etc. Science may also entertain, provide insight etc. but it is, in the final analysis, anything but subjective. It is an objective ordering and investigation of all available evidence.
A scientific inquiry may, in the long run, produce the same reactions as a work of art but how you "do" science is light years apart from how you "do" art.

On the matters of Science, it is a procedure available for use as needed to understand the world around us with the senses available to us. Not only the senses, but science is tinged by the funding bodies, the research agencies, and so human influence on science is considerable. However, it is clearly seen that deliberate mis-representation of data and willful falsification is extremely rare, and dealt with harshly. Yet in in concepts of experiment design and research priorities, the human factor is a large, and often a subconscious influence. This is because a hypothesis before a test is decide by a human scientist, with which an experiment will be designed to test. Therefore, importance is the understanding the difference between a theory, an observation, a model, and a law.
Art has an 'Artist', and so does in Science, an 'Artist' is also recognized, as in the individual who explored and made a discovery of the 'nature' around us.
So I believe, in a way, it does entertain discretionary subjective expression, biased to our senses and influences.

I am internally questioning my assertions, nevertheless.

Mind that I am making a clear distinction between the desirable goals of Science in comparison with the goals and demands of Art...that was the point being made...again hypothesis exist either to be confirmed or refuted...the extraordinary merit of science as contrasting to other human activity's consists precisely in the ability to refute often initial assumed hypothesis and frames of work long believed even by general consensus...evolution in science is carried out that way.

I dunno. The goals might be the same or, at least, quite similar. But the methods of achieving them are quite different.

Well I see your point and can empathise up to an extent but the goal of Science as a method is to reveal and clarify what initially was hidden from view, and while Art can very much achieve the same goal through its most extraordinary expression Art normally requires the very existence of such knowledge even if intuitively in the first place...while Science uncovers the unknown Art recovers the well known normally though innovative processes...what is certainly agreeably common between art and science is the expression of beauty that flows out of its work, as good science and good art are always elegant...while the elegance of the how is the art of science, arts science consists on the instinct for elegance...

Hmmmm...not really. The artist need not know or understand anything about the facts of pigmentation, let alone how oil paints are manufactured, in order to use those oil paints to good effect. And his/her inspiration is strictly subjective and internal. The artist's motivation is also significantly different from the scientist's motivation: the scientist wants to know; the artist wishes to express that which he/she already knows or intuits.

Of course it needs to know it just not any further then to the practical purpose on which those materials are useful to what he wants to express and that needs to be know to make them blend and work together, but that set aside and clarified the point being made is exactly the one you produced in you last sentence...

It is not just something one knows but something one does. Einstein, recognized his work General Relativity (and now it's newest off-spring, M-Theory) merely for it's beauty and elegance.
However, I understand your point.
You're suggesting that in science and any work(s) from that field are meant to be reproducible to anyone who follows the same pathway of experimentation, whereas in Art, that simply is not the case, as Art is to be considered 'unique' to that Artist. But isn't a new hypothesis and theory an art in itself - an artistic representation of another artwork (previous hypothesis and theory)?
Also my idea of art is as a matter of intention- to capture understanding or to mimic nature.


Fil Albuquerque:
There is good art and bad art, and this "good" and "bad" is a similar problem with science. There are the scientists who takes little time to decide on a theory, then do not listens to anyone concerning their findings. Then there are the scientists who will spend a long time to correctly and accurately represent what it is they have found in nature.

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I suppose in the end it is all a matter of various ways each individual sees a word.
It'd be interesting to hear from any artists, and I wonder if they would balk at the comparison.

Unless, of course, you share the view with Paul Feyerabend--a philosopher of science--that in science the fundamental methodological principle is that "Anything goes." This is--as I see it--also the fundamental principle of art production.
Later, as the opportunity presents itself, I'll share my notions of the roles of subjectivity in art and the centrality for life of the aesthetic experience.

I think that art is the divine core of human subjectivity. Indeed, it is, as an objective fact, a matter of "deep subjectivity". Consider John Searle's notion that it is an objective fact that all human experience (of life) is subjective.

I don't know if it is the case but given its a meaning changer I will just complete it as in science anything goes indeed as long as it works...and the only way to make it work so far that we know off is precisely by being methodical and objective in measuring whatever fulfils or not fulfils certain goals and functions...it is true anything goes in the sense you certainly can do 10 types of different engines to make a car run, be it gas electricity hydrogen or whatever else...but it happens to equally be true that what they all have in common is that they happen to be the product of an objective methodical investigation and observation of whatever works and does not work so that they can efficiently fulfil the function they were designed for...the needed tautology follows that anything goes as long as it goes anywhere as I am yet to see a car driven purely by the power of the will or conscience alone never mind the small provocation implied J...

...still I am interested in listening whatever your thoughts are about the "aesthetic experience" given your relation both with art and philosophy...

Thanks for a reasoned response.

Here's a surprise.


Calif. Artist Wins $200K At ArtPrize In Mich.



DETROIT (AP) — Adonne Khare's carbon pencil on paper drawing "Elephants" isn't just a massive display of the lumbering yet beautiful mammals. It's a long look — spanning across a 13-foot-by-8-foot canvas — at a part of her life.

Thanks you Letty. What a beautiful appreciation of mammalian life.

The work of Science is the continuous work of discovery and revelation to humanity as a community in its growth and development, it addresses what is unknown to us all that needs explaining, while the work of Art although revealing intends to address in our sensibility what might be common between us explained under the focus of a different light...and that was the point being made that you tried to reboot by saying exactly the same thing...go figure...

Regarding your commentary on the knowledge an artist needs to have to produce a work of Art, if not sloppy or amateurish it is a great deal indeed...the possibility's and the potential of the materials in use require years of experimenting and investigation to achieve best results although and quite correctly its focus is restricted to what might useful to fulfil the artist idealization...hope the matter is settled regarding whatever you were trying to disagree with...

As water reacts differently with fire then alcohol does and everything which by being different naturally reacts differently so do human beings have different reactions and processes of relation with their surrounding reality but on a much narrower scale as being the same species there's much more in common then there is of distinct, what else is new ?...subjectivity should not be regarded as a white elephant with magical property's nor the recognition of subjectivity needs to conflict with an objective view of reality...the problem of subjectivity is rather a problem of complexity and the diversity that a great deal of complexity brings on from person to person in its relation with the world...
...on the contrary of what seams to be suggested the deep subjectivity a work of Art displays would never be sufficiently appreciated socially speaking to attain the recognition or the status of Art if the common elements of human beings were not present...Art is not about the novelty of what is said or shared but about the novelty on how something is said or shared...and in that sense is not just distinct from science but quite the opposite of what science intends through its method.

on a final note let me just say I hate the strength of the pack attitude by which "herbivores" preference for assertive back slapping and mutual praising works as a process of gaining social strength to get a point across instead of objectively and honestly addressing the matter without conceptual word salads, never mind the grammatical ones, if the meaning is clear enough, yet another confusion often used with abusive purpose...in philosophy it is paramount to make such distinctions to qualify our interlocutor intentions regarding the clarification or the muddling of the waters on whatever is being debated...

There's a big enough distinction to be made between the how it works and the how it is told or expressed...the complementarity of science and art results from the importance that art has for the products and the discovery's of science to not be mundanely banalized by bringing a new light not to the core concept of what is shared but to innovative forms of sharing the common elegance present in our worlds experience as a sum of cultures and as a species...